No, it makes you a Minnesotan and me a Michiganian, and both of us Irish-American. Please stop trying to disrupt a conversation with your inane implications. I don't know why you would imply that you are something you are not. What it makes the person who lives in Ireland or Scotland is an Irish or Scottish person. And it makes those who speak Gaeilge, Gaeilgori. My point is that it would be very hard for one to accurately portray themselves as a Gael when the Gaelic culture, in all its glory, ceased to exist several centuries ago. What we have are cultural memories of that way of life, and influences from it. But I doubt you would find many that would say that Ireland or Scotland are Gaelic societies. I have no problem with those who choose to use the term in a contemporary sense to convey their cultural pride, but I am making the distinction that as a cultural society, with all the influences of language and custom and design and politics, the Gael ceased to exist several centuries ago.

Pied Piper, I apologize for my confusing use of the term "first language". I did not mean to imply that I am a person who uses Irish as a first language. I am not. I am simply someone who has been exposed to the language a great deal in my life, understand more of it than the average person, but in no way could be called a speaker of it. What I meant to convey was "people who speak Irish as their first language". I hope that clears it up.

One thing that occurs to me while I think about this thread. Bear with me a minute here. One of the first thing that is taught about communication is that it can only occur when the sphere of one's experience can overlap with the sphere of anothers experiences. What I mean by this is that if you could imagine all your life's experiences as a being contained in a big circle, and your opponents as the same; and if you could move those two circles together until they overlap to some degreed, it is the area of overlap where one can find agreement. In other words, we need to walk in each others brogans.

For the Irish born person who struggles with the idea that Irish Americans hold onto their cultural identity so strongly, in spite of the fact that they may never have set foot in Ireland, I would submit that this is a by product of the supposed melting pot of America. For many of us, we have been raised to find our identity in this. This is especially true of those of us that were raised in the post WWII era. Such a big deal was made about "fitting in" and "being American" that it left a "culture gap" with regard to the things that other communities taught as a matter of course.

For the American born Irish descendants, can you imagine what it must be like to have such a strong identity and find it being diluted and watered down by a group of people from another country entirely? This being done by those who appropriate only the shallowest of images and then corrupt them (green beer, green hair, pointy ears and shoes), or worse than that, actually excerbate problems at home (such as the troubles) by failing to understand the problems, or reducing them down to phrases for which there is not complete understanding?

Until I came to the Mudcat, I was guilty of many of these things. My cyber friends have given me a very solid education on the reality of things. They have broken many stereotypes that I carried and had no idea that I was guilty of. I say this as a person who has spent a very large portion of my life trying to not do this.


All the best,

Mick